Advocates for San Diego’s immigrant populations say the county’s communication of potentially lifesaving information during the fires in languages other than English has been inadequate.

The San Diego Chapter of the ACLU issued a statement Friday saying that since Thursday, Asian and Latino community leaders have been “imploring” county officials to disseminate information in multiple languages.

“Many of our clients only speak Chinese, and when there’s an emergency, communication dispatches in our own language is very important,” Sally Wong Avery, president of the Chinese Service Center San Diego, said in a Spanish language statement.

Holly Crawford, director of the County’s Office of Emergency Services, said the county prioritizes communication in multiple languages and has made big strides in reaching diverse populations during emergencies.

“The safety and wellbeing of every member of our community is important,” Crawford said in an email. “I’m committed to risk communication planning for non-English speakers and significant progress has been made.”

Crawford added that “there is still work to be done but we are proud of the partnerships we have created and the progress we’ve made in this area.”

The county’s Office of Emergency Services is equipped to broadcast messages in different languages through its reverse 911 tool, a regional alert system used by 18 cities, the county and the sheriff. In addition, the 211 non-emergency information hotline, which received around 22,500 calls during these fires, has translators in approximately 200 languages.

Press conferences during emergencies are translated into American Sign Language, and foreign language interpreters are available if journalists request them, Crawford said.

On Thursday the county started a Spanish Twitter feed, called SanDiegoListo, with emergency information. Its first tweets were about evacuations, park closures and information about how much land has burned, similar to alerts on the English Twitter account. By Friday evening, the account had issued 54 tweets and gained 181 followers.

Christian Ramirez, a human rights advocate, joined the ACLU in saying the county should be doing more. In an interview, Ramirez said press conferences and social media updates about the county’s 11 fires have been exclusively in English, posing a threat to people’s welfare if they don’t understand English.

He said vital messages — evacuations, emergency alerts and the like — should be issued quickly in the county’s five top non-English languages through whatever means these messages are spread in English.

He posted a complaint on his Facebook page Wednesday, which generated a brisk discussion, with dozens of comments and more than 100 “likes.”

“Reprehensible that San Diego County Officials are not providing vital information on the current state of emergency in multiple languages,” Ramirez wrote.

During the 2007 fires, he added in the interview, “we documented serious problems when it came to providing folks access to information, not just in Spanish but in the top five languages in the county.” He said the county effectively communicates in non-English languages for voting and health advisories.

Crawford described one of the county’s recent efforts to reach more people during emergencies. A few months ago, her office conducted focus groups with eight non-English speaking communities to learn how they should be best reached during emergencies.

Some groups transmit news through text messages, others trust information from their own community leaders, and others tune into hyper-local media sources, she said. The county set up a list of community leaders — nonprofits, religious organizations and individuals — within the eight groups, to ask them to help convey messages when emergencies happen, Crawford said.

She said the county is looking for more groups to help spread information to non-English speakers. Interested organizations can email ReadySD.Business@sdcounty.ca.gov to participate.